Britain To Invest £50 Over 5 Years In Global Development Innovation Ventures

Jun 14, 2013

“Britain will invest £50 million [$78 million] over five years in Global Development Innovation Ventures, [a new fund that] is expected to unlock further investment from the private sector and other governments,” The Guardian reports. “Speaking on Friday ahead of next week’s U.K.-hosted G8 summit in Northern Ireland, David Cameron will say the fund would enable entrepreneurs, academics and [non-governmental organizations (NGOs)] to secure financial backing for solutions to the most pressing problems facing the developing world,” the newspaper writes, noting U.K. International Development Secretary Justine Greening, “who is looking at ways of giving her department a sharper entrepreneurial focus, said: ‘This new organization means that the U.K. will play a key role in ushering in a new era of innovative, cost-effective development which can help deliver a safer, more prosperous world'” (Elliott/Stewart, 6/14).

According to Tech City News, Global Development Innovation Ventures has four specific goals: “to find, develop and test innovations that have the potential to generate significant social impact and economic returns”; “to develop a pipeline of investment-ready innovations, providing a focus for social investors and unlocking commercial capital”; “to create a marketplace to broker co-investment and collaboration between investors and innovators alike”; and “to ‘crowd-in’ a global network of partner governments, private investors, foundations and donors with resources to bring proven concepts to widespread adoption” (Hesse, 6/14).